and I quote…

“Sustainability is the key to any lifestyle. Sure, I could sell my phone and my laptop for the price of a few hamburgers. But, then, the hamburgers would soon be gone, and so would my phone and my laptop. I would have absolutely no phone, so an employer could contact me. And without a laptop, I would only be able to search and apply for work online during the hours that the public library was open. I wasn’t always homeless, of course, and neither were most of the homeless people out there, whether they’re the more visible ones you see in the doorway of a 7-11 begging for spare change or they’re able to blend in a bit better, as I dod. To me, it’s the most basic thing in the world to use your resources wisely when you become homeless. In today’s society, a phone and internet access are no longer “luxury” items. They are practically necessities. These are tools that by themselves aren’t worth enough to get you a deposit on an apartment (and even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t continue to pay the rent for you ad infinitum), but they DO hold out the potential in the long term for getting you a job…As for true “luxury” items, I challenge the notion that the homeless “do not deserve” to own anything that may bring a small amount of happiness and pleasure into their lives, which are generally uncertain and bleak.”

-Brianna Karp, “A Girl’s Guide to Homelessness” (This book is really good, FYI. And I  LOVE this!)